Hello everyone,
I've got a 401 I'm looking to rebuild this fall. I'm currently running sniper efi, msd ready-to-run ignition, edelbrock performer intake and headman headers. It mostly works well together but I did end up adding a 1" spacer between my throttle body and intake after installing the performer because I had issues. Turns out my throttle body needed a good cleaning but there are a lot of efi threads that talk about having issues with the efi not liking dual plane intakes. I'm still playing with mine so I haven't figured out anything positive or negative yet but I have found that after installing the performer intake I had to advance the timing to 15 ish degrees at idle. It no longer backfires at partial to full throttle with this change. Any ideas why that might be?
Also, I drove to work one day with the hood off and could see smoke coming out of the breather every time I was at WOT hence the rebuild. What I'm wondering is for you guys who have rebuilt 401s before, where have you gotten your parts and things to look for?
I know the 401 was throttled back after 71. Did they do this by using dished pistons and lowering compression? I'd like to get more out of my engine without using a wild cam and losing vacuum at idle, so if you use higher compression pistons at what point do you think I'll have to run higher than 91 octane fuel?
This motor has been rebuilt by a previous owner and I'm not sure what was done before, but as of now my plan is to bore 30 over and install high compression pistons/rings, all new bearings, rv cam, double roller timing chain, oil pump rebuild, and although I'd like to install edelbrock performer heads I can't afford them and plan on rebuilding some stock heads I'm getting from a friend off a spare 360.
FYI, this is my daily driver for now but I am not worried about fuel economy, mostly reliability... and the ability to do burnouts on 33's...
Any and all suggestions/insights/help is greatly appreciated.